Is O Gauge Becoming Too Expensive?

[Anonymous]

My LHS dealer told me today that he's considering dropping O gauge from his inventory because it's become too expensive not only for him, but for the consumer. He says that he he sells much more HO and N scale than O, even more model planes and cars and those items are much more profitable.

He didn't go into detail but I could tell he's frustrated. I know that Weaver recently jacked their prices up 30% to the dealers. Just what's going on in the O gauge market?

[Big_Boy_4005]

Joe, just look at what the average hobby store owner has to contend with. First of all O gauge isn't the most popular size of train. If your loscal dealer doesn't make a lot of sales in O, then why devote a lot of money and shelf space to it. Of course he manufacturers don't make the task any easier with their monster catalogs.

Add to that mail order, internet and eBay sales, and the mom and pop stores have every right to throw in the towel. It isn't just the price, it's EVERYTHING!!!!

[Anonymous]

Joe---It's not GETTING too expensive.....it IS too expensive. Odd-d

[Roger Bielen]

In a word - YES! I've probably bought my last engine for the foreseeable future.

[Anonymous]

No doubt, it's too expensive. I bought a scale K-Line Mikado this year. It will be the last engine I buy for some time. I got it for $500, but really, why should a toy cost $500? This is more than I spent for the new thickness planer I just bought!

At least with my woodworking, even though the power tools are expensive, all I need is one table saw, etc. Shell the money out once & I don't have to worry about buying another.

Tony

[okiechoochoo]

O scale three rail may be too expensive but I can still do what I call O 3 rail traditional just as cheap as HO. Traditional 6464 boxcars by Lionel can be bought all day on ebay for $25-30, the same as some scale assembled HO models. I buy Williams engines which can be bought for not much more than top quality Atlas or Genesis locomotives.
I saw a Genesis F unit ABA set this weekend, custom detailed, very nice, for $375. You can buy the WIlliams F3 ABA for $425 delivered. That is not that much difference in my opinion

[clinchfieldfan]

I agree with you fellows, I have gotten to the point where I only purchase a few items a year now. (usually freight cars or a building or two). I wonder where the "ceiling" is going to be on the high-end products?
Some of the new scale engines cost more than my 1995 Ford pick-up is worth!
When I got into O scale seven years ago I sold most of an extensive gun collection to buy the trains I have now. When I see a new product I like I usually have to trade in one of my previous engines to get the price near what I can afford.

[Anonymous]

The only way to go in O.............WILLIAMS........Great product,excellent prices,A1 service![:D]


4567MARTIN

[Big_Boy_4005]

Somebody has to have the money to buy this stuff, but it isn't me.

[willpick]

I've basicially stopped buying O trains except for special items, birthday and christmas presents. No more engines except for a Christmas BEEP, and if MTH makes a Florida East Coast SD40-2.
I'm lucky that i've got several shops that carry O gauge, but make the bulk of their profit from all the other stuff they sell(RC cars/trucks/boats,etc.) plus plastic models, dollhouses,etc. To survive, they diversified as much as possible.

[3railguy]

The recent price increases may have to do with rising oil prices. Oil is used heavily in plastics manufacturing.

O gauge trains have always been expensive. In fact they are cheaper today than they were ten, fifteen years ago before this era of chineese imports. In 1987, a Lionel B6 switcher was $650 discount. In 1990, a Lionel scale hudson was $1100 and $950 for a mohawk. These engines had crude railsounds and no command control.The $500 K-Line mikado is a bargain compared to that. Standard O rolling stock was $50 to $60 a car ten years ago. Crude compared to todys Atlas O for the same prices. Figure in inflation and we have it much better today.

I joined this hobby in 1980. It is HUGE compared to then. With exception of the thin TCA quarterly, there were no O gauge magazines like CTT and OGR. We only had postwar Lionel, Fundimensions Lionel with a 15 page catalog, and Williams with a flyer.

[choochin3]

I agree O is getting too expensive.That is why I buy used MPC freight cars.I usually pay about $15.00-$25.00 for a 6464 type boxcar.They roll well,look good,and they are cheap![tup][swg]

[Dave Farquhar]

If it gets too expensive, there'll be a market correction and prices will come down. It's the way economics works.

Pricey almost-scale cars targeted at hi-railers seem to take up the majority of the market these days. The collector in me doesn't want to pay that kind of money for something new. If a car is going to cost three figures or nearly so, it needs to be 50-75 years old. But that's me. To the hi-railer, those 50-75 year old cars are overpriced because they aren't realistic enough. What the manufacturers make will depend on what sells at or near retail and what ends up being blown out for pennies on the dollar at closeout. If there's a market for $10 K-Line cars, then K-Line is going to make more of them. The same for the $100 cars. They'll go where the profits are. They'd be nuts not to.

But there's another extreme. On the TCA mailing list, someone's been talking the last couple of days about a $29.95 battery operated set he found at Toys R Us. For 30 bucks, you get a battery operated locomotive, some track, a boxcar, 8-wheel flat car with load, 4-wheel flat car with load, and an 8-wheel caboose. It runs on O gauge track. The manufacturer of the set is unclear. Some others on the mailing list say they haven't found it in their local stores yet. As Christmas gets closer, I'm sure it'll get easier to find.

So there's activity in Louis Marx's old stomping ground at the low end as well.

[Anonymous]

O gauge has never been cheap but we are living in the golden age of O gauge trains, never so many choices. I just buy what i like and can afford. The choices are out there from the inexpensive to the outrageous, just buy what you like and can afford but by all means have fun.

Dave

[Anonymous]

Yes! That's one reason I recently turned more of my attention to On30 (O scale narrow gauge operating on HO track). I sold a few excess three-rail O gauge trains and have been able to develop a full roster (12 locomotives and a variety of rolling stock) with the money made from those sales. Best of all, since the trains themselves are still O scale (1:48), I can still use all of my previously acquired O scale accessories/structures/etc., so it's not like starting over from scratch.

[Anonymous]

Yes it is expensive, but out of line from the rest of the market? Probally not. THere are RC people who dump thousands into their toys, collecting guns, there is a pricy hobby(plus when was the last toy train related death you heard about)[:D][:p]. But the ON-30 really points the way. Broadway limited makes a beautiful 2-8-? with sound for 269.00??. This is a great little engine. With me it is the sound i could not live without, that is what makes it come alive. But if bachmann can do a locomotive for 80.00 like a 2-6-0, and it looks and runs great, why can't someone else do the same. Heck look at garden railroads, they also have a nice detail and are great runners.
Personally i feel the electronics have taken over the sport, that said there are lots to chose from without all the gadgets. I myself have a K-4 high iron on layaway. Yes it is pricy but i am willing to pay that for what i want. If my budget was more constrained i would look hard at williams and others for low cost altertives. Bill

[Anonymous]

I managed to buy three of those sound-equipped and DCC-ready Broadway Limited 2-8-0 (C-16s) in On30 with the money I made from selling a bit of three-rail stuff. They, plus nine or ten Bachmann locomotives--Shays, Porters, Moguls, gas-mechanical switchers ( I understand that the entire run of these little gems has already sold out), and trolleys--make up the collection I have thus far. Best of all, tthe whole works, including some beautifully detailed rolling stock, cost less than two higher-end three-rail O gauge steam locomotives. I love O gauge, but I gotta admit that I'm getting a whole lot of bang for my buck with this On30 stuff.

[brianel027]

One thing I notice from looking over some older Lionel catalogs is that there was more product on the low end and the prices were not as to the extreme from one end to the other (like they are today). Of course, the trains were much simpler then too. The other thing to consider that even during the glory days, Lionel was expensive as compared to competition of that day, such as AMT, Kusan, Marx, Cobler etc.

So the tradition continues: Lionel is still overall the most costly today as compared to K-Line, Williams, etc. It's ironic that the acutal production costs of making the trains today has to be lower than it has been in decades (as compared to stateside production), with current manufacturing being mostly in China.

No doubt the other companies watch Lionel's suggested retail prices and either stay in the ballpark or go lower. I don't question for one minute that all the new tooling and product development is contributing to the rising prices, much more so than the recent rise in oil prices. MTH put millions into the development of DCS, not to mention all their massive amount of new dies/tooling. And Lionel has had a real spurt of new product development in the past few years. Of course there are other factors, but I'm certain new product development is one factor. Of course, there's a lot of product variety in HO (meaning tooling/die costs). I'm sure the HO companies can recoop their costs much quicker, being that HO is much more popular and sells more.

The pricing on the large scale/G scale stuff is a mystery to me. Allan's right, it is a bargain compared to 3-rail 0. Even K-Line's G scale GP has a list of just under $100.00!

I'm also sure in Lionel's case, that some list prices like the Postwar re-issues, are high intentionally as to not dramatically deflate the values of the originals. Of course, some folks will always want the originals. And some folks will gladly pay for them too. But if the new P-W re-issues were a bargain you couldn't pass up, I'm sure that take away a least some interest in the orignals.

Several elements do help make the hobby somewhat affordable today, if you're willing be patient. One is e-bay, which has made buying and selling used (and new) trains easier than ever for the average consumer. The other is the 2 magazines, CTT and OGR with all the advertising devoted to 3-rail trains. The other factor is the declining modeler base with the increased competition... which has resulted in inventory backlogs, which results in clearance and blowout prices for the consumer.

I'm sure there are others out there who feel at times the blowout prices are what the stuff should have been priced at in the first place. But regardless, it seems this seems to be when a lot of guys do buy.

You see a advertised blowout mentioned on the train forums, and the stuff goes fast. In the past, I've had experiences where I've called on an advertised blowout price to be told "we had loads of that train car, but we've been swamped with orders this morning, and they're already gone, sold out... we can't believe the response."

Well, I can. This thread proves that point... train guys don't buy when the price is too high, which is more and more the case these days. But they will buy when the price is right and that usually means "blowout."

[Anonymous]

Relatively speaking, I don't think prices are that much out of line. I keep thinking back to around 1951, when I was 12. I was hounding dad for a 22 rifle. One day, in the car, I mentioned that I sure could use a third O22 switch for a lumber loader and tank car spur. That switch sold for an astronomical $12.50!

Dad gave me a choice. Either the rifle or the switch, but not both! Since I already had two switches, but no rifle, the choice was easy!

Dad got me a Marlin 81DL tubular bolt action rifle and threw in a Weaver 4 power scope! Today, a comparable Marlin rifle would cost arounr $150 plus? But a new O22 switch is a little over $50 or so.

A 6464 hopper or gondola cost then around $8.95. And no discounts!

My point is that while the high end scale locos are high, the cost of rolling stock today is proportionally less than it was 50 years ago.

Tony

[Anonymous]

I think what I'm about to say won't come as a surprise or news to anyone. But I'm gonna say it anyway [:D]

The thing I find hard to accept is the prices of these things & the relatively few that get produced. If these are supposed to be toys, the prices and quantities made don't reflect it. There is no doubt in my mind that the manufacturers aren't making toy trains with kids & the mass market in mind, but for the collector.

Essentially, these things were toys for young boys in the first half of the century, maybe into the 60s & the 70s. Somewhere along the line, the manufacturers decided that they could mine the same kids they targeted in their youth as adults with more disposable income. And that's why we have such high prices.

The strategy is obviously working since so many guys who grew up in the 50s are willing to shell out those big bucks for these things.

The most I've ever paid for a locomotive is $500. I don't intend to spend even that much any time soon (gotta build my addition & pay the bills). I think I'm gonna concentrate more on sets & accessories when I do start buying again.

Tony

[goodness]

Looking at all the blow outs in the last 2 months, it doesn't look like it is getting more expensive. To be sure, there are a lot of high end products being offered, but if you look around on the dealer's web sights, there is plenty lower end product for sale. Champane tastes and a beer budget? Can't change that in any hobby. Looking at some of the ads in MR I think you can spend PLENTY in HO or any gauge if you want to.

Doing any hobby on the cheap can be a challenge but it can also be rewarding. The make it yourself vs buy it RTR is an option. As a kid I got alot of pleasure from comong up with ideas and building something for the layout that was unique. There is also a ton of used O gauge out there. That is one reason to go to the local shows.

Your friend with the hobby shop is facing what all small retailers are facing...a changing way of doing business. I doubt we will ever see a time when O gauge is more popular than HO. OR see small businesses put large volume dealers out of business. And it is almost impossible for him to compete with the internet retaliers. He can't do their volume or get their pricing.

I love O guage and think I will stay with O because I can actually see it in my old age.

Paul Goodness